In this edition of the "Librarian's Choice," I focus on science fiction, both humorous and serious. If any member has a favorite book that he/she would like to share with the others, send your review to the Editor.

The Adventures o f the Stainless Steel Rat!
by Harry Harrison

I first picked up The Adventurers of the Stainless Steel Rat! about 12 years ago on the advice of one of my few high school friends Lars Berg, who was killed in a motor vehicle accident by a DWI driver a week before he was to start attending college. I'd like to dedicate this review to his memory.

Harry Harrison looks far into the future, where mankind has spread throughout the galaxies and no longer recalls its planet of origin, mother Earth. It is a society where at the moment of birth each person is scanned for signs of anti social and anti-moral behavior, and if any are found, is trained in "proper" behavior. Thus do we have, in the eyes of our protagonist, a stagnant culture in need of his particular skills to keep things happening, economies growing, and people working.

Enter "Slippery Jim diGriz," who by some fashion escaped notice by government sociologists and was not diagnosed as the "criminal" person he turns out to be... a modern worm in the apple, or as he puts it, "a stainless steel rat among the ferroconcrete of civilization." The rise to his thieving and unique way of viewing his actions and the universe are first cultured by a mentor, called "The Bishop," in A Stainless Steel Rat is Born and A Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted. These starting books, strangely enough, weren't the first ones released, but rather were the fourth and fifth of the five books comprising the Stainless Steel Rat series. It doesn't matter now since all are available and one can read them in logical order as given at the end of this review.

We follow Slippery Jim's growth through adolescence to manhood, and his vow to work the docile, unsuspecting people of the universe to his advantage. In the process, as The Bishop points out to him, they are not criminals, but instead are unique people who perform a necessary funtion in civilization, specifically to fuel local economies: police forces have real work to do, following their crimes rather than dutifully directing traffic or rescuing cats from trees; insurance companies pay out money to compensate businesses and banks whose profits they steel, thus circulating money through the economy; the vandalized businesses hire workers and spend money rebuilding and recapitalizing, again vitalizing the economy. All these and more are the reasons The Bishop and Jim diGriz justifies their actions.

We then go on to follow the criminal life of Slippery Jim through the universe, until he is finally caught in the act by the head of a secret intelligence organization, the Special Corps, within the universal government, a former thief himself - "it takes one to catch one," Jim realizes. It is then that Jim is offered a unique opportunity, to become an operative himself in The Adventurers o f the Stainless Steel Rat.

Jim uses his talents to infiltrate alien races who plan to conqueror the universe, or who plan to defeat his own profit schemes. Along the way he meets an insanely deadly woman who steels his glory and nearly kills him, but in the end she is brain-wiped to remove the harshest personality traits, enough so Jim takes her as his wife, partner in crime, and fellow operative in the Special Corps. As they go on Jim and his wife Angela have two boys who follow in their father's footsteps, and together this elite team of the Special Corps can handle any threat to the League of Planets.

What I've failed to mention in this brief review is that this is all done by Harry Harrison with outlandishly funny, outrageously extreme humor, which is both indirectly and directly commenting upon our real society and its many ideas and products. The books are all in the first person, as told by Slippery Jim with dry humor and many intentional, gut-wrenching puns and humorous twists on the ordinary.

There is a lot of technology in the books, placed into the storyline with care but not with overburdening buzzwords and technical data; when things do need to be explained, Harry Harrison does so with simple but comprehensive comparatives, drawing on his extensive sci-fi background and scientific expertise. The adventures of Jim diGriz span the universe, interact with many races, and even jumps around time - one being a visit back to Earth of the 20th century in order to save the future universe from being dissolved.

The books are fun to read and funny when reading. I have recommended them to all my friends and now do so to my larger family of friends in the club. These are novels that will entertain and will be fast, exciting reading. The order in which the books should be read are:

A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born, ISBN 0-553-24708-5. Bantam Spectra Books.
A Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, ISBN 0-553-27307-8. Bantam Spectra Books.
The Adventurers of the Stainless Steel Rat, ISBN 0-425-04378-9. Berkley Books.
The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! ISBN 0-553-12625-3. Bantam Spectra Books.
The Stainless Steel Rat For President, ISBN 0-553-22759-9. Bantam Specta Books.

Ensign Flaridry
by Poul Anderson.
Ace Books.

For some true, serious science fiction with a theme of mystery and drama throughout the three books of this series, then Poul Anderson's works are the way to go. His writing style is well known to sci-fi and fantasy readers, having some 100+ successful novels to his credit, and many awards. His style is concise, his character dialogue realistic and motivating, and his scenarios well planned and carried out. We start off with a young ensign in the Empire Navy, the armed forces of an Earth-based government which has in centuries passed expanded out successfully but now is faltering under its own weight and poor management of its leaders, who prefer decadence to aggressive, "in the trenches" government. An alien race threatens the Terrans, one whose goals are much the same as the Terran Empire of yesteryear, a young race who sees the humans as soft and not worth the universal influence they currently, tenuously hold. It is much like the premise of the conflict that began between Japan and the U.S. in 1941, though the conflict that has resulted is behind the scenes, where spies, lower technologically advanced peoples as pawns, and no outright hostilities. The Empire does not wish war, but rather wants to bask in its former glory and set aside such unsavory discussions in favor of wine, women, and song.

Ensign Dominic Flandry comes from a middle class background, going into the naval service since he has little left at home on Earth. He is intelligent, eager, wise, and has the true patriotism, one of a grave minority in his society. He is assigned to a world far from Earth, one on which there are two intelligent, though less advanced, species: tigerpeople, who are land dwellers and build ships to trade among the lands, and a walruspeople, who dwell in the seas and resent the ships of the tigers. The Terrans support the tigers, their lizard-like enemies the sea-dwellers.

Flandry crashes his fighter while on a scouting mission, and finds his way aboard one of the tiger ships. Here he earns their respect, even though their government is a matriarchy, by helping to save their ship during a walrus attack. It is this rapport that enables his superiors to eventually win one for the Empire.

But there is more beneath the surface. Half-lizard, half-andriod spies, mind­reading races, space warfare in so called "police actions" and "limited wars" abound. There is intrigue, suspense and mystery through the career of Flandry, who we watch rise from the lowest commissioned rank to a full captain and a prime agent of the Empire. They don't dwell much on the technical aspects of all that is presented, but Poul Anderson has done his homework when it comes to planet environments, space travel, and related material.

For those of you playing in Will Nesbitt's Manifest Destiny game, it is the hydrogen breathers of this series that I suggested Will use as his galactic news reporters.

The books are great reading for true sci-fi lovers who also like some mystery. They are, in order:

Ensign Flandry. ISBN 0-441-20724-3.
Flandry of Terra. ISBN 0-441-24071-2
Agent of the Terran Empire. ISBN 0-441-01066-0

The Man-Kizin Wars.
Created by Larry Niven, with Poul Anderson and Dean Ing.
ISBN 0-671-65411-X

These are a compilation of three short stories about the interactions and reactions of two races of creature, humans from Earth and a bipedal, massive tiger­like warrior race from planet Kizin, based on an outline of the two futuristic cultures provided by Larry Niven. These creatures, the Kizinti, are fearsome space-faring creatures who encounter humans for the first time as the Terrans are exploring new space. The conflict isn't friendly, and once the distress call reaches back to Earth war has begun.

The three authors offer the reader interesting stories that are consistent in the development of and basis for the Kizinti, and give enough explanation and background so that the GM who wants to use the Kizinti can do so rather easily: in fact, I used them for my race in my Manifest Destiny game position.

The short stories are well written and fascinating, giving the reader some good sci-fi reading. There isn't a great deal of combat between giant space fleets but instead more subtle, pensive solutions by the weaker humans whose brainpower overcomes Kizinti raw physical prowess and aggressiveness, and who, after centuries at peace, learn the art of war once again when the Kizinti threaten their people and territory.

Overall, I liked the book but was left somewhat wanting. While the authors made a good cooperative effort in developing the two races, are given ample background concerning each race's personalities, traits, and conduct, and are provided with some interesting plots, the fact that the books is a complilation of three novellas is its weak point. None of the three authors are given room to make a full-blown effort that they might have had the book been a three part series of full­-fledged novels, with each author making a 300+ page effort. Still, it's worth reading in my opinion, and an excellent source book for developing an RPG non-player or player race of ferocious feline space-farers.

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